It ends so quickly. For all but one team, the NCAA Tournament each March is a cruel mixture of unrestrained joy and overwhelming sadness.
UNLV
BALTIMORE — In need of some good news, the UNLV basketball program received a boost Wednesday when top prospect Dwayne Morgan orally committed to play for the Rebels.
Finished products in the NBA Draft are like college basketball coaches who marry a Maxim swimsuit model, hold a percentage in a company that is sold for $100 million and lead a No. 15 seed into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Allergy season is arriving, the Earth will continue rotating toward the east, and in another breaking news story, UNLV freshman Anthony Bennett is close to announcing he will enter the NBA Draft.
It is March 24, and from mid-November until now, Mountain West basketball teams have played nearly 300 games. They have been ranked, defeated quality opponents, earned good enough results to have entered the NCAA Tournament with the nation’s No. 1 Ratings Percentage Index of all conferences.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Most of the blame is dumped on the coach when a game or a season ends in depression. Dave Rice deserves some criticism at the conclusion of his second season.
I suppose there is a silver lining for UNLV basketball today, hidden somewhere in the mess of yet another opening-game loss in the NCAA Tournament.
If anything, the shove exposed the urgency that has attached itself to Mike Montgomery’s legacy. Perhaps it was for motivation’s sake, of driving his best player to greater heights. Perhaps it came from that cavernous place that said the moment was big, the game was bigger, and not many of either are left in his coaching career.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Exaggerating a bit, Anthony Bennett called the moment a “dream come true.” But only recently did he envision arriving here.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — An unlikely spokesman stepped up this week to promote New Mexico, UNLV and the rest of the Mountain West. Charles Barkley is as serious as a comedian, but when he talks, people listen.
The Mountain West stuck out its chest a little farther Sunday when five of its nine basketball teams were selected to the NCAA Tournament, but that’s already old news. What matters now is how each performs when the madness begins.
The sight of Carlos Lopez-Sosa standing in front of the bench in his warmups applauding teammates and trying to ignite the crowd has become an indelible image for UNLV fans.
It was a little past 3 p.m. Sunday when Bryant Gumbel’s brother announced that seventh-seeded San Diego State would play 10th-seeded Oklahoma in the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia on Friday.
It appeared Anthony Bennett might be unstoppable. The bigger the game, the better the UNLV freshman forward typically plays, and he opened at his best. But then he disappeared, and eventually so did the Rebels’ hopes of winning a title Saturday afternoon.
UNLV is seeded No. 5 in the East Region and will open NCAA Tournament play Thursday against No. 12 seed California at San Jose, Calif.
